Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Since AT Kitchn was so good as to include on their lovely food blog a whole post dedicated that exotic culinary endeavour, the peanut butter sandwich, I thought that we should showcase the ultimate accompaniment to that pinnacle of cuisine: the glass of milk.

The first thing that you'll need for this creation is some milk. Many milk connoisseur prefer whole milk, while others find this variety too rich and cloying. When you are serving this beverage for company it is often your best bet to go with a middle of the road style, 2%.

Depending on how much of this delicious beverage you want to offer to your guests, you may want to offer it in a highball glass or maybe something a little smaller if you're only offering a small nightcap.

Some afficionados prefer this exquisite beverage in a room-temperature glass but I have also seen it served in pre-chilled glasses for maximum coldness. I sometimes even put ice in mine, likely a habit that I picked up after drinking an excess of Caucasians during a viewing of The Big Lebowski.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

You know, I think that it's safe to say that we all know what needs to be done in life. We ~should~ eat right, exercise, relax, read good literature.. listen to Enya. Okay, maybe not that last one, but you get my point.

I have been meaning to get my ass off the couch and join a new gym this month. Why? Because I know that I need to start exercising more. I bought new jeans a few months before Xmas and the combination of Hallowe'en and Xmas goodies has added some extra padding to my ass and now they don't fit. So, I know what needs to be done and I have a realistic goal planned out... and have I been to check out the new gym that I think I want to go to? No.

Also along this same train of thought, I've been meaning to get back to my fabulous Paleo Diet eating. I did this eating plan (I hate the word diet) last summer and I loved it and it solved some health issues for me but do you think that I can get back on track now? NO. FFS...

So, knowing that both things will give me the results that I'd like to have... why can't I get my ass in gear and do them? The only excuse that I can think of is that it's really damn easy to be lazy.

In fact, some experts in evolutionary psychology think that laziness might actually have benefited early man. Relaxation, after all, does have a lot of benefits when you live in an environment that's likely very physical and with a lack of our modern unlimited amount of calories.

I guess that I just need to wake up and realise that I'm not an australopithecine and I need to get off my ass and force myself to the gym. The nice thing about not being an early hominid is that we all have the options of making these kind of choices for ourselves. I suppose it's just a matter of more of us actually making these choices...

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

I have a very dry sense of humour. This statement comes as no shock to anyone who knows me in person. This doesn't even come as much of a shock to anyone who knows me primarily online either, unless they are a little oblivious to sarcasm.

However, some people—both in real life and online—read my straight delivery of dialogue and no-nonsense attitude when I'm doing something that I need to concentrate on as abject bitchery (closely related to abject dickery, but of the female variety).

This isn't a new problem for me, all my life the occasional person has read the intentions of my comments or facial expression (hereafter referred to as "Nim's srs face")as benchmarks of just what a big, humourless bitch I am. Now, admittedly, I can give one heck of a good "mom look" when it's required, but I'm pretty far from completely devoid of a sense of humour.

Now, don't get me wrong... sometimes when I'm in charge, my comments are basically of the "Stop fucking around and let's get this job done." variety, but I honestly don't think that this is a bitchy comment. If I wanted to be a bitch I'd tell people to stop being a useless waste of skin and get their thumb out of their ass... now that would be bitchy! (except that I couldn't say that without laughing, and that kinda ruins the whole effect I think)

My issue is, I think, with the fact that I hear men who're in charge of things make comments or requests (or what have you) to people all the time that no one thinks are "jerky" but when I'm in charge and I tell people to get on track or follow some rule, I get complaints that I'm rude or bitchy.

I was going to write some sort of eloquent and witty end to my little rant here but really, it all just comes down to the fact that if you're going to fuck around when there's a job to be done, don't act all butt-hurt when you get called out on it and asked to focus your attention on the job at hand.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Nim was horribly sick last week. Now I'm horribly sick this week. I am writing this while I'm supposed to be working out and getting ready to type another day's worth of omgrealestateisawesome. But, no. No, I am stuck in front of this computer; horribly tired, but I can't stop swallowing and a constant stream of hot water, honey and lemon is the only thing standing in the way of me trying to rip out my vocal cords with that box cutter that I'm using to break down my boyfriend's dialysis boxes so that I can make coptic-bound books out of them. Long story.

Anyway, I could be at Emergency right now, begging for antibiotics, but I'm not. A) I am not at all eager to partake of the many delights of the emergency room, including blood and guts, certifiably insane people wandering around, the victims of drug deals gone wrong and people so high that they think they're floating on the ceiling when, in fact, it's taking four nurses to get their 280-lb body onto a gurney. B) I don't need drugs.

I'm a big fan of drugs in general; some of them have helped me deal with depression, some of them keep my boyfriend of dying from a stroke, some of them do the same office for my mother and aunt, some of them take away the OHDEARDOGI'MDYINGANDI'MGOINGTOTAKEYOUWITHME pain of my menses. (Hell, thy name is dysmenorrhea!), and some of them saved my boyfriend's life when the dog chewed through his dialysis cord and sent him to the hospital with peritonitis.

So, hey, I think drugs are all right. Except in my situation right now. I have a nasty head cold, laryngitis, general malaise, whininess, snarliness and crankiness. None of these things deserve the automatic application of antibiotics or any drug beyond the Dayquil-get-you-through-the-day-so-you-can-collapse-after-work (I'm staying home today, take that, budget!). I am a reasonably healthy person with no immunodeficiency problems (these people often NEED heavier applications of antibiotics to stay alive). Even my boyfriend doesn't advocate them, and he has to put up with my random application of emotion to common everyday things:

"Hey, you want some ice cream?"

"WAAAH!"

"What the hell? Why are you crying?"

(through the medium of signs and exaggerated facial expressions, since I can't fucking TALK) "I am unhappy because I feel miserable and I can't talk. Also, the Mayan Chocolate ice cream reminded me of that one time that we got it and we were happy and I didn't have a cold and I DIDN'T FEEL LIKE I WAS DEEP-THROATING A HACKSAW!"

"Oh. So, you want some ice cream or not?"

The poor man likes to fix things for me, so he got me pasta salad, a slice of chocolate mousse cake and a tub of Haagen Daaz Mayan Chocolate ice cream. This is better than any antibiotic on the planet and don't let the helicopter moms tell you any different.

Anyway, my point is that what reasonably healthy people need when they're sick is rest, plenty of fluids and (ideally) a caring spouse who will walk the dog and do most of the recycling transport to the curb themselves. Too many antibiotics and before you know it, you've just become the vector for the German Shepherd / Lab Cross Flu.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

If you think that's funny, you should look up posts on Apartment Therapy that happen to contain pictures of a hide/skin rug or wall hanging. I have seen maybe three posts that didn't have some vitriolic comment along the lines of FUR IS MURDER OKTHXBAI. And of those three posts, one hastened to assure the reader that the rug was 'rescued at the last moment from the garbage!'

Strangely enough, when leather sofas are mentioned, it's rare for there to be an actual mention of anything to do with animal cruelty. Apparently the closer to the animal in the rendering process corresponds with the amount of cruelty that the producer/seller/buyer is accused of.

I am opposed to trophy hunting or hunting solely for skins/teeth/gall bladders. However, I am not opposed to hunting for meat or to rid an area of a dangerous animal. I am also not opposed to humane meat production. As Marshall Saunders said in the book Beautiful Joe, "It's a possible thing to raise healthy stock, treat it kindly, kill it mercifully, eat it decently."

However, this brings to light some things that we North Americans often find shocking and abhorrent. I speak of using companion animals as food animals - dogs and cats. Now I am an avid dog lover. Avid? More like obsessive. Cruelty towards dogs, of all the companion animals, makes me tense up and fantasize all manner of scenarios that end with animal abusers begging me to kill them because it hurts so much and me saying, "Ha ha! Fuck you! No." The practice of eating dogs just doesn't do it for me.

But is it my right to condemn people who raise dogs for the purposes of food if I'm okay with pigs being raised for consumption? An adult pig is easily as smart and trainable as an adult dog, only less aesthetically appealing. What about cows? Sure, they don't seem as smart as the pigs, but then again, I've had dogs that weren't too brilliant in the brain department and I wouldn't have heard of dumping them because of it.

Our attitudes towards animals and what is cruelty and what is not seem really skewed when I look at them this way. I won't get over my abhorrence of dogs being eaten, but I don't think I can condemn it unless I condemn the killing and eating of other animals.

I can't wait until the AT house tour with a dog skin rug featured on the living room floor. The mogg blogg came close with the taxidermied former Fido, but not quite.